Former Gov. David Paterson speaks on 100th anniversary of N.Y. Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped

ALBANY >> Gov. David Paterson made a rare return visit here Tuesday for the 100th anniversary of the state Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped, literally leaping up on stage at a hotel to give a speech on how he strived to overcome his blindness.

"Never underestimate the blind," Paterson deadpanned to the crowd's delight after ignoring the stairs and jumping several feet up to the podium. Paterson, who served for almost three years after Gov. Eliot Spitzer's resignation, was the first blind person to serve as governor in the U.S. He was also New York's first black governor, eventually abandoning an uphill effort to get elected and clearing the way for Andrew Cuomo.

Paterson noted he was speaking on the 100th anniversary of the exact day the commission was formed, saying times have changed for the better, with more opportunities for the blind and less discrimination. He said one of his regrets was that in his family's wish to see him mainstreamed, he never learned to read Braille, which presented challenges as governor, such as having to memorize his hour-long State of the State speech.

But he said the assistance and training he received at the commission changed his life. The commission, which is part of the Office of Children and Family Services, provides such services as vocational rehabilitation; orientation and mobility training; independent living skills training; and employment counseling and placement.

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"So many times this commission played a role in my life," he said, citing a course he took through the commission at Syracuse University after he graduated high school at 16 to prepare him for college. "So we walked into college with three credits, unlike other students," he said. "For once the blind were ahead of everybody else."

He said one of the lessons he learned early was what he called "the sense of setback, the sense of disappointment that you haven't earned."

"The first time it happened to me was a couple years after I left Syracuse," he said. He said he was 18 and a junior at Columbia University when he was up for a catering job being offered by the husband of one of his former high school teachers who was a family friend.

"Everybody got hired except for me," Paterson said. "I don't think my family realized why he didn't hire me at first which caused me to become more and more antagonistic." Eventually his parents figured it out.

"Then (the caterer) committed the final act and drove the stake completely through my heart - he hired my brother who was underage. In other words, he broke the law to avoid hiring a blind person to work in a catering service. He didn't think that I could take an apple and a sandwich and put it in a cardboard box."

He said he returned to Columbia and got incompletes for the rest of the semester. "I couldn't get past how was I ever going to get hired anywhere if no matter how well I do in school I'm not given the opportunity."

So he came back to the Commission to get more vocational training and they impressed upon him the necessity of standing up for himself, either through protesting outside the business or calling up a newspaper to say what happened.

"It taught me the sense of advocacy, not just for myself but for others," he said. "So the incident which was so painful to me ended up being a turning point in my life and once again the commission was involved all the way."

"As for the caterer, he moved to Florida and eventually passed away but not before he found out that the stone that he refused became the governor of the state of New York," he continued. "When I became state senator I ran into him once and I was with my parents, and he said, 'You know, out on Long Island we always knew you had great ability. We always knew you were going to be a tremendous leader.' "

"And I said to him, well for whatever I have achieved I have a lot of people to thank and a lot of people not to thank, and I just hope you know which list you're on," Paterson said.

Paterson said the circle was closed on his last day in office in 2010, when two of his close aides invited him into an office for a presentation. He expected a cake and found an assortment of sandwiches and apples. "They said we really wanted to know if you could put those sandwiches and apples into the boxes, because you told that story a hundred times but you've never proven it."